


Castle on a Cloud

by holdoadmiral (girlwiththedragontatooine)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Force ghost Padme, Gen, One Shot, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:31:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwiththedragontatooine/pseuds/holdoadmiral
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for an anonymous poster on the TFA Kink meme. The surprisingly non-kinky prompt was: "Padme's gotten some Force Ghosting lessons from Anakin and uses this power to comfort her grandchild Rey in dreams with ghostly comfort and singing lullabies when she's upset and can't sleep on Jakku (or anywhere else).</p><p>Rey's not sure if this beautiful lady is a dream or what, but it's so nice she doesn't care. (Bonus points for implying Padme visits her poor children too in their times of need but they can't see or hear her as well as Rey can.)"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Castle on a Cloud

At nighttime, the AT-AT Rey called home would grow dark, so pitch black it felt to Rey as though someone had tied a cloth around her eyes and blocked out her vision. Without her sight, her hearing was heightened. She used to jerk awake at any noise, but now she had lived there long enough to recognize the good sounds– the wind, a lost critter, a loose part of the AT-AT– from the bad sounds– thugs sneaking into her home, thieves coming to steal her possessions, attack from ships flying overhead. 

There was one thing Rey never heard, lying alone in her makeshift home at night: voices. No one spoke in Rey's home except for Rey herself. That was why, one night when Rey was staring up into the darkness, trying once again to ignore the worry that something might have happened to her family, something might have been preventing them from ever coming back, she heard the faint sound of a woman's voice and immediately sat straight up in bed.

"Who's there?" Rey called out, her voice echoing across the cavernous AT-AT. She scrambled around her to find her staff.

The voice grew louder, but it did not sound like an answer. Rey's fingers stopped in their frantic skim across the floor. Was the voice... was it... singing?

"Is someone there? Hello?" Rey asked, softer this time. The voice grew stronger, and Rey did not call out again, because she wanted to hear what she was singing. At first it was hard to make out, but then the song grew louder and a story began to fill Rey's mind. It was a song about a young man who traded all the gold in the world for a system of planets. He presented each planet to a beautiful queen, showing her all the flowers and animals and jewels that each planet had to offer. Rey found herself leaning forward, straining to hear the song, her mind painting pictures of a handsome man, like the stories the traders told, kneeling before a queen in long robes of gold. She could see the petals on each flower and feel the fur on each animal her showed the queen. Rey was entranced, picturing things she didn't know event existed, but the world built up around her so much so that she felt almost as though she was the queen being presented with each wonder from the planets her suitor had given her.

She held her breath, listening as the voice sang of the suitor, telling the queen that his love for her was too big to even be contained by all the planets he had given her. Would the queen have his hand in marriage? The queen smiled and took the boy's hand and told him, no, she could not marry him, for she was already married– to her planet, to her people, to the place that she ruled over.

It was just a song, but when it was over, Rey wiped away tears from her eyes. She felt like she had been there, seen the palace, felt the queen's emotions as she turned down the boy. Rey did not understand.

"Please, won't you show yourself? Why did you sing me that song?" Rey called out, the back of her mind saying that she should still be searching for her staff, beautiful song or no, but her heart keeping her frozen in place as her eyes scanned the darkness of her home. 

"Why are you here? Who was the queen?" Rey said again, to silence. 

Her home was nothing but darkness and quiet. Had Rey imagined the song? Was the desert wind playing a trick on her?

"Her name was Kylantha. She was a queen long after I was. I wish I had known her."

Rey nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of a young woman's voice, coming from right beside her! Hands scrambling madly to find her staff, Rey whipped around to face the sound and was shocked to see a young woman, glowing faintly, sitting beside her.

Rey managed not to scream, hands finally wrapping around the familiar metal of her staff. Although, this woman did not look like someone she would have to fight. She was slender and delicate, sitting up straight as her silken nightgown draped around her legs. Her hair fell across her shoulders in thick ringlets, brushing against the strings of pearls that made up the straps of her gown. She looked like a creature from a children's tale– a magical woman, something from the days of the Jedi. And yet, she could not have been much older than Rey, with smooth skin and wide eyes, and a soft, but sad, smile on her face. She was tinted blue from head to toe, emitting light from her body that cast a glow around her.

"Who are you?" Rey asked, hands loosening on her staff.

The woman reached out a hand, but did not touch Rey. "My name is Padme," she said. "I used to be the queen of a planet called Naboo."

"Like the girl in the song?" Rey asked, mind momentarily returning to the image of the girl all in gold.

Padme laughed. "Yes, like the song. We ruled the same planet, but at different times. Neither one of us rules it now. We are just stories, whispered stories, being told to all the wrong people."

"Am I the wrong people?" Rey asked. "Uh, also. Why are you here?" Rey added, embarrassed that she was so focused on what this bizarre woman thought of her.

"I am here because you are the right person," Padme said. "I know loneliness, although the kind that comes from bearing the burden of responsibility is a different kind of bitterness from the kind the comes from being left behind. But little girls should not feel lonely. You are not alone, Rey."

Padme reached out and placed her glowing hand over Rey's. She could not feel any pressure from the touch, but seeing a hand over her own made Rey feel strange. She brought her other hand over Padme's. It felt like there was nothing there but Rey's own two hands– this was silly, Rey thought, as a hot, wet tear dripped down onto her hand.

"You do not deserve to be alone," Padme said. "So I am here to chase the loneliness away, at least for tonight." 

Rey wished she could hug this woman– this vision– this dream. 

"Thank you for being here," Rey said, quietly, because if she talked too loud she was afraid the spell would be broken and the woman would disappear.

Padme sang to Rey of queens of old ruling over space and of planets Rey could never have dreamed existing and slowly her eyes grew heavy and the songs Padme sang lulled Rey into a sleep full of dreams of adventure, of escape, of love.

When Rey awoke the next morning, she was confused by the warm feeling in her mind, the images of girls in gold holding huge, blooming lilies, until the image of a young woman in glowing blue burst into Rey's mind. What a strange dream, Rey thought. What a wonderful, strange dream. 

Sitting in the pleasant warmth of the setting sun, licking the meager crumbs off of her plate, Rey thought more about what the woman in her dream had said, about the songs she sang. Would she dream of the woman again tonight? What had been the name she had given herself... Padme? She was a queen once. What did that mean?

As Rey settled down to sleep that night, her heart raced at the thought of the mysterious queen visiting her her again. Would she return for Rey? That was a funny thought to have... Rey could not stay relaxed in her bed, with her heart racing and her mind on the queen. She tried to remember the songs Padme sang her, to distract her mind. Soon Rey was picturing palaces filled with jewels and planets covered in flowers and trees and as her mind raced around this beautiful world Padme had built for her, Rey drifted off to sleep, her mind for once not even considering the faceless family who might not be coming back to take Rey home.

Rey awoke feeling more well-rested than she had ever felt before. And every night after that, her mind would return to those beautiful worlds and Rey would drift off to sleep, far away from the familiar gaping loneliness that usually preyed on her at night. Night after night Rey went to sleep filled with hope, but slowly the dreams of planets far away and queens of old no longer held her captivated enough to ignore the gnawing at the back of her mind, the fear that each day would be the same as the last, Rey scraping her fingers in the blistering heat as she stared into an empty sky. No one was coming back for her.... but they had to come back.

Tears dripped down the sides of Rey's face as she lay down in bed, staring out at the muffling darkness. She did not know how much longer she could live like this, each day fading and blurring into the next until it became an endless scrapheap in the sun, the only thing changing being the portions of her food shrinking and shrinking until the only thing that filled her stomach was a painful growl. 

"Please, my child, do not weep. You are not alone."

Rey's heart shot up like a flare in the night. She sat up straight, facing the glowing woman beside her. 

"Padme?" She asked. "You came back!" And there she was, spreading a faint blue light across the AT-AT, smiling at Rey. She no longer wore a nightgown, but instead a glittering gown of yellow, embroidered with pink flowers, ribbons at her wrists and tying back her hair. She was beautiful.

"Of course I came back," Padme said, placing one touchless hand on Rey's knee. "I could not leave you alone to the darkness." 

That night she sang a song of love to Rey, a song about a boy and a girl who had both spent their lives working hard and turning away friendship, only to find each other and fall in love. The song had a happy ending– of rolling in the grass with the sunlight smiling down on them, but Padme made it sound almost melancholy. Rey was fascinated, turning the images over and over in her mind, these people she never knew existed.

It often went like this, Padme appearing in the night to comfort Rey and fill her head with stories– of brave litttle girls trained as warriors, of queens and their planets and clever deception, of princesses and pirates and falling in love amongst the clouds. Rey barely ever thought at night of her family, or of the fear that her life on Jakku was all that she was ever going to have. Instead, her head was filled with these stories, and her nights filled with Padme's beautiful voice.

"Will you always be here to comfort me?" Rey asked one night in a whisper, scared about what this dream would tell her.

"Any time my stories no longer bring you comfort, I will return to tell you new ones," she promised. "If I do not return, it is because your life is about to become a story of it's own," she said.

"How could my life become a story?" Rey asked, imagining some old woman attempting to make a myth out of Rey's life. It would be a short myth. Short, and sad. 

"You will have to wait and see what happens," Padme said, with a small smile. "People who become stories rarely expect it to happen."

Rey wondered if the queens Padme sang about had lived lonely, monotonous lives in the time before their stories started. Had Padme lived that kind of life?

Padme would always appear to Rey as a different woman, some nights a young warrior in battle gear with her hair pulled tight into a bun, other nights a queen with a painted face and hair stacked long and high. One night, she wore a long gown of deep blue, her hair thick, and long, dotted with white flowers like the way stars dot the black night. Her belly was big and round, and she rested her hands on it as she sang to Rey a story of a king in black robes whose heart had been turned to ice by an evil sorcerer. He committed terrible atrocities and hurt the only people he loved. No one could melt his heart, until one day, his children he had believed to be long dead came to his castle to defeat the evil sorcerer. They had heard that the king had once had a warm, beating heart and been a warrior of legend. They knew that behind the ice, that same heart could still beat again. Just that belief was enough to start melting the king's heart, and he himself destroyed the sorcerer with the power of his children's love.

Glittering tears rand down Padme's face as she finished her song. "Family does not give up," she told Rey, and even though Rey was crying, too, her heart felt warm.

The woman visited Rey at night for a long time, until one day, Rey was sitting and eating dinner, a scavenged Rebel helmet perched on her head, and she realized that Padme had not come to visit Rey for two weeks. The last song Padme had sang was about a princess who's baby was stolen by and evil king, and how the princess tore the galaxy apart trying to get her son back. Rey had forgotten about the story– she had spent the evening looking up at the sky and imagining she was a fighter pilot, flying her X-wing into the sky and searching for her family. Something MUST have happened to them, for them to have not come back to get her yet. Rey had not thought like this in a long time.

Why had Padme not returned? Rey had begun to believe she was being visited by a real woman, or some kind of fairy or angel. But maybe it was just her mind, trying to comfort her and finally giving up. There was no one coming back for Rey, no family and certainly no mysterious glowing queen.

Rey looked out at the sky through the visor of her helmet. There was nothing there, not a cloud or bird or ship. Rey's heart was heavy. Padme had left her, just like her family had. Rey had no story to start, nothing worth being retold at the trading posts by smugglers. What would they say? She was a lonely, forgotten girl, her life blowing away like sand in the wind. And she had no new stories to distract her mind from that thought.

Just as Rey was about to resign herself to sitting outside her AT-AT forever, tears streaking her face, she heard it– the panicked scream of a BB droid. The cry for help was unmistakable, and she could think of a dozen terrible scavengers who would tear apart a droid with the hope of gaining more money. Rey ripped the helmet off of her head and grabbed her staff, the start of one of Padme's songs ringing in her mind as she raced after the call of the little BB droid.


End file.
